[UK-CONTEST] New contest proposal

[Chairman, RSGB Contest Committee]

The Contest Committee has been in dialogue with GM3POI and 
GM3WOJ regarding their idea of a replacement for the 
21/28MHz contest. We discussed this proposal at our 
face-to-face meeting last month, so here is a summary of our 
conclusions.

(1)  The Committee has suggested several times that the 
21/28MHz contest is not viable, because it is really only of 
interest to UK amateurs, with insufficient participation to 
provide a real contest for everyone else.  The contest's 
reprieves have relied on support from the few UK stations 
entering, but posts now seem to show a consensus that it is 
not worth keeping.  The comparison on this reflector with 
similar numbers of UK participants entering events lasting 
90 minutes or 4 hours, where everyone can work everyone, is 
clearly not relevant to the 21/28MHz contest.

(2)  Other countries have their own "Everyone works everyone 
and Ruritanian provinces are multipliers" contests.  These 
are generally poorly supported, and adding country 
multipliers makes any UK contest virtually the same as all 
the others.

(3)  It's hard to see how an overlap with the Oceania 
contest might be feasible.  Stations wanting to work a 
specific area won't appreciate being pestered by those 
trying to work everyone -- not a good way to maintain 
friendly antipodean relations.  The idea that the RSGB has 
"squatter's rights" is not borne out by the fact that the 
TRC has already started a contest over that weekend.

(4)  We already has a very successful 24-hour mixed-mode 
international event, the IOTA contest.  This is biased to 
the UK in the sense that any UK station will be high-scoring 
(perhaps a multiplier) for a caller, but does not rely on UK 
participation for its success.

(5)  The Committee is aware that it needs to get more UK 
contesters to take part in weekend events, both RSGB and 
others.  The success of the weekday VHF and 80m 
club-oriented contests is encouraging, even though many 
participants are simply helping out their clubs. Chris and 
Clive's idea of incorporating some aspect of a weekend 
contest into the 80mCC series is worth looking at, perhaps 
in relation to the IOTA Contest.

(6)  In summary, the Contest Committee is not convinced that 
we need another international contest in the calendar, 
particularly as the IOTA contest is the RSGB's "flagship" 
event.  In addition, the future of the 21/28MHz contest is 
again open to debate, for the reasons given above.


The Committee is appreciative of the work from Chris and 
Clive in creating and putting forward this idea.  Don 
(G3XTT) has suggested that a "Europe works the rest" contest 
might be feasible, but 24-hour and without the QTC element, 
and this might be an avenue worth exploring instead.

73,

Ed Taylor, GW3SQX
Chairman, RSGB Contest Committee